Minutes before the ceremony began, he gave students around him one penny each, with instructions to give the penny to Principal Linda Junge every time they were to shake her hand on the stage.

"She's going to have seven dollars and fifty cents," he said. "There are seven hundred and fifty of us."

But pranks aside, Cho said that the big day hadn't quite sunk in for him just yet.

"I feel like it's going to be a big change, but at the same time, not really because I'll wake up tomorrow morning doing the same thing. Until I go to college, I feel like it's going to be the same," Cho said.